White House press secretary grilled over alleged illegal voters

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January 24, 2017 9:06 PM

Spicer said the president stands by his belief that millions voted illegally based on "evidence and studies" he's been presented.

Sean Spicer.

Reporters grilled White House press secretary

Trump has stated that he would have won the popular vote, which he lost by 3 million votes to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, if millions of people did not supposedly vote illegally, a claim supported by no evidence and fact-checkers

Asked by a number of reporters Tuesday, Spicer said the president stands by his belief that millions voted illegally, saying the belief is based on "evidence and studies" he's been presented.

Spicer insisted that Trump is "very comfortable with his win," which was secured with more than 300 electoral votes, and the press secretary seemed to play off Trump's Monday evening remarks as a simple "discussion with some folks."

"This is a longstanding thing that he's believed," he said.

Pressed to provide any of the studies or evidence he was speaking of, Spicer said there was a 2008 study from Pew that showed 14% of people who voted were non-citizens.

The study frequently mention by Trump in past instances during the campaign, however, was not from 2008, but 2012. The Pew report stated that 24 million voter registrations were no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate, more than 1.8 million dead people are listed as voters, and about 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state. The report made no claims that those people voted illegally in an election, as it was written as an argument for modernizing the US voting system.

What Spicer was more likely referencing was a 2014 study by Jesse Richman and David Earnest, which found that more than 14% of non-citizens in 2008 and 2010 "indicated that they were registered to vote." But the group that designed the study said in 2014 that the sample was so small it could be incorrect.

Spicer would then be asked if the administration would launch a voter fraud investigation, to which he said "maybe we will."

He later said there is no investigation at the moment, but that one would be possible to launch.

Asked if he personally believed that millions voted illegally, Spicer avoided the question.

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